Other formats

    TEI XML file   ePub eBook file  

Connect

    mail icontwitter iconBlogspot iconrss icon

Promenade

IV

IV

Waikato, Taranaki, Wanganui … everywhere the wind of battle blew the fire in the fern and rushed on, leaving destruction and the dead behind. Wellington, seeing the flames approaching, built redoubts frantically and screamed to Auckland in what might be considered parliamentary language.

“Get something done, can't you, you perishing idiots,” cried Wellington. “You have the Government and the military H.Q. and the church, and you claim you've got the brains. What the devil are you doing with it all?”

page 350

Auckland (very shabby and anxious) was doing what it could, bringing flour from Valparaiso, bacon and butter from Ireland, hay and oats from Scotland, beef from Queensland, and regiments from everywhere. So balls, routs, and card-parties redoubled in energy, and Caroline's Lucilla quite refused to be out of the game. “This is no time to think of our own sorrows, and I can wear white with black ribbons,” she said, wearing it to such purpose that a sandy-whiskered Wellington business man named Piper, up to negotiate loans, presently carried her off.

Poor John's farm remained desolate, although Captain Harry Atkinson and his Volunteers cleared the bush round the town of marauders, and Brian and Jerry were seeing life spectacularly with the Colonial Rangers. “We are under Von Tempsky now,” wrote Brian; adding that, beside bringing an American war repuation and a fine scarlet sash with him, Von Tempsky had a cunning notion of bowie-knives instead of bayonets for scrub-cutting, and knew all the American camp-fire songs.

Brian, coming home with a shoulder wound, sang “Dixie” and “Dolly Gray,” and told how the Maoris were like fleas. “Just as staccato and hard to catch,” said dark little dandy Brian, lounging in bright gown and embroidered slippers on a cushioned chair, recounting his adventures to sympathetic young ladies.

Von Tempsky, he said, was the man, though campaigning with him was no child's play, by Jove. Kept his men so close on Maori heels that a fire would betray them, and usually their only food was the leavings of the Maoris.

“So we had to trot to fill our bellies.” But for the nightly rum-ration they'd have lain down in their boots and died. For all their wonderful bravery and stamina, the Maoris knew nothing of strategy or unity of command, so we were gradually driving them off the ranges, said Brian, and out of the deep gullies and nearer the big guns. page 351 But it couldn't have been done without the rum-ration, and even with that Brian felt that if he came safe out of this he would love a girl and settle down.

“Oh, wouldn't it be safer not to wait for that?” urged Sophia. But Brian was watching Alice Whitman's admiring eyes, letting himself go in deeds of derring-do: talking of the new paddle-wheel steamers towing barges of troops up the shallow rivers, of the great bastioned pas which only Britain's Imperial soldiers were crazy enough to attack, of the Maori flag….

A pitiful thing the Maori flag sounded in Brian's contemptuous voice. Of scarlet cloth, with a star, a cross and “Aotearoa” stitched on it in white stuff so very crookedly. Such big stitches they would be, thought Sally, since Maori women, though clever at weaving, could not manage the English needle. Such a little pitiful thing to send two races of splendid men to war.

“I hope Roddy will come back before all the fun's over,” said Brian, establishing himself a hero in Alice Whitman's eyes.